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Alex
It was Friday.The last day of the challenge.
This one month felt like the longest one in my life. I don’t think it had anything to do with my injury, but everything to do with Emma coming into my life and something exciting happening every day.
Emma spent last night at my place and it solidified in my mind that I was going to do anything to make a relationship between me and her work. I wasn’t in this for the sex, but damn was the sex a huge bonus on top of everything else. And to think that by the end of the weekend Emma would be moved in here with me. I was more excited for that than the end of the challenge today.
It would hurt like hell when she inevitably found a new place, though. She really wanted to try living on her own and if she was dead set on it, I wasn’t going to even try to persuade her to stay. I wanted to support her in what she wanted to do and I understood her need to do this for herself. Hell, I needed it after living in team houses for years as well, it’s why my first purchase after winning my first major tournament was this apartment.
I woke up a lot earlier than her that morning but didn’t daremove to get up. She was cuddled up into my chest and I couldn’t fathom disturbing her peace. Instead, I kept her closer and inhaled the scent of her shampoo. My body was more relaxed than it had ever been before.
When she finally stirred, she wrapped her arms around me before mumbling a good morning. She wouldn’t let me kiss her because of morning breath, which was stupid and eventually she relented. We kissed good morning and then got up.
I could get used to going through my routine with her by my side. Watching her make faces in the mirror as we brush our teeth together; I gave her a toothbrush last night. Making her pancakes in the morning for breakfast and getting a sloppy kiss when I put her plate in front of her—it all made me light up on the inside.
“We should really start the stream earlier. What if we need more than four hours to find a Challenger game?” She said while putting her plate in the dishwasher.
I agreed and we decided to start the stream right after lunch. After breakfast, Emma took her laptop and plopped on the couch, looking through her emails and doing who knows what else, while I busied myself with my own inbox at my desk.
As I worked through my emails, I started worrying again. Emma just needed one win against one of the lowest ranked fifty Challengers to make it. And she damn well deserved it. She was good enough to be in Challenger and she had played her ass off over the last weeks to prove it. Plus, I felt like I taught her pretty well and I took it quite personally.
My efforts last night hadn’t yielded anything and Lauren didn’t have any good news or I would’ve had an early morning phone call or at least an email in my inbox by now. I had to make sure, though, so I texted her.
Please surprise me with some good news.
Lauren
Nothing yet. No one wants to cover this.
What about the rest of Team Solid, doesn’t anyone want to come out and talk about this?
Lauren
The team is ready to go, but management doesn’t want to get them involved. They think it’ll alienate fans before the season has even started.
I knew what she meant by that—it would anger the sexist pigs that supported Team Solid and the team didn’t want to lose any fans, especially now that I won’t be playing.
When it came time to set up for the stream, I could see the determination in Emma's eyes. I kissed her just before we went live, savoring the moment. I wouldn’t be able to do that until after midnight.
Immediately after the start of the stream, Emma had gone into full focus mode and was on a three game win streak in no time. In the past few days there wasn’t much more I could teach her, so I just watched her play or asked her to talk to me, or distracted her by reading what the chat was saying.
At some point, viewers in the chat started getting suspicious about Emma’s inability to rank up once again. I couldn't hold back what was happening any longer. “Chat, I need to address something important,” I said, my voice tight with anger.
The chat fell silent, waiting for what I had to say. “Oracle is being blocked from Challenger. The lowest fifty Challengers have been deliberately not playing NLA for the past week in order to block her. They didn't learn their lesson the last time they tried todo this to MalfRage, I guess their punishment back then wasn’t enough.”
I could see Emma's eyes widen beside me, surprised I was speaking about this, but I continued. “A few years ago, do you remember when MalfRage transferred from EUW to NA? Remember the boycott from the Challengers who cost him the place on the team? They blocked him from ranking up to Challenger for two weeks so he would miss the cut-off for the competitive season. It's sad and pathetic that they're doing the same to Emma right now.”
The chat exploded in outrage and I felt validated in my anger finally. But naturally some were questioning the validity of my statements.
“You know what? I have leaked messages about all fifty of them agreeing to this boycott. If one of them doesn’t queue up a game right now, I’m going to get them in trouble with the developers. I know most of them can’t afford a third strike on their accounts.”
There was a tense silence from Emma at my side. Then she cleared her throat. “You knew they were blocking me and you didn’t tell me? I asked you about this and you lied.”
“I thought I could resolve this behind the scenes but clearly no one wants to be reasonable,” I defended myself.
Emma was angry. Her face was flushed, her jaw was set, and her eyes held none of the kindness I had come to expect. “You should’ve told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you and I really didn’t want you to feel bad because we know why they are doing this,” I said while gripping the side of the desk, trying not to reach out for Emma. We were on stream and I couldn’t just explain to her how hard it was for me to see the woman I love being harassed online, in partbecause she was someone close to me. I couldn’t explain that I was trying my best to protect her.
